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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615439">La Jolla</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DreamSMP</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Introspection</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:06:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for the November 16th streams)</p><p>Its awful quiet in here, isn't it? There's a stillness to the atmosphere that invokes some mental image of death; a tableau of Pompeii, right when the ash started rolling in. The dark feels awfully swaddling.</p><p>  <em>maybe one day i'll live in la jolla</em><br/><em>drinking cocktails out over the water</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>No Romantic Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>La Jolla</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is no tunnel and there is no light.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Heres what there is - there's wood chips in Wilbur's hands and a drink on the bar in front of him. There's a bar in front of him. There's a bar in front of him, rickety and wooden and shaped like a coffin.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Stupid literary brain. Now he's stuck here, this poetic melancholy hell or purgatory or something even worse. There's a beach out there, an open and endless sea, and theres probably a library and a guitar and a heaven of sorts. He'll have to wade through the ocean if he wants any of it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So there's a cocktail in his hand and woodchips splintered into his palms. The condensation of the glass runs down the handle and leaves him feeling clammy.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Its really not a bar. Its really just a coffin, and it's really not a bar, but he's sat at it and maybe that's all that matters. There's a bar. There's a beach. There's an ocean, somewhere. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is no tunnel. There is no light. The inky black of the world around him swamps around his legs and holds him, frozen, in amber.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He takes a sip of the drink. Its fruity and punchy and something he can get behind, with just enough alcohol to sting. He'd like to get drunk, maybe, and dance around in a sweaty crowd of dumbasses and pretend that nothing was ever wrong with the world. But there's no dancefloor out here, and whatever it is that's pulling the strings - be that Prime or God or something else entirely or nothing at all - doesn't grant him the mercy of his final request. Maybe it already has. Maybe this is it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There's a sunset out there, something in him says. There's a sunset out there and he can almost see it, can almost hear it, almost taste the colors through the sulfur. Real enough to touch. Not real at all.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Tommy, of course, comes to mind. He thinks suddenly that he's done the kid a massive disservice; he is, after all, just a kid, no matter how grandiose he builds himself to be. He could scoop out Tommy's shoulderblades and he still wouldn't shape back into the kid that he should be. Still wouldn't be the proper mind for his age. His trauma will always bloat him into someone older, and it makes Wilbur sick.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He shouldn't have given him the presidency, for starters. It's sort of sickening that he's only seeing all of this with a delirious, backlit clarity, and he'll probably never get to apologize for any of it. He swirls his drink and wonders about the words he'd say.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Take Tommy by the shoulders. "Hey, big guy," and Tommy would brighten because he likes nicknames that make him sound older, "I shouldn't have ever dragged you into that Prime-forsaken war. You don't deserve any of this."</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And Tommy wouldn't understand beyond the initial shock of offense, quite honestly, but he'd pull the kid into a hug and run his fingers through the curls on the nape of his neck and squeeze him so hard that he'd bitch about it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is a certainty in the image that makes him feel a bit at peace with it all. There is a similar certainty in the idea that Wilbur Soot will haunt the nightmares of his younger brother until the day they're both safely in the ground.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Tubbo, then. Wilbur shouldn't have given Tommy the presidency, but he really should have left Tubbo on his own. There's nothing for him in that office, no matter the digging he'll do, and there's no glory in leadership. The scandal of the explosion will go down in history as one of the lowest moments in the history of L'manburg, marking his reign of presidency in a strikingly similar fashion to the scar across the bridge of his nose. He'll never get away from it, no matter the prosperity he may bring - and judging by the state he's left them in, it won't be much.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His fault, then. Same as everything else, of course, but Tubbo in particular makes him feel a bit nauseous. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The kid's always had a good head on his shoulders. He's a good man for the job, and that's why Wilbur picked them, or something - but they're too perfect for the position, and the ambition in their stupid heavy heart is gonna burn horns into the sides of their head before they're even a legal adult.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Prime save him. He takes a sip of the cocktail and finds that he can hardly choke it down this time; the alcohol is bitter and disgusting and most certainly vodka. The kind some fat old grandmother would pour into wounds as a last resort. The kind that burns all the way down.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Wilbur decides not to look at his hands. He decides a lot of things. Kicks at the side of the bar and looks out into the black and in the swirling shapes behind his eyes, watches the sun set over the beach.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><em> <span class="s2">Does he wanna be a hero?</span> </em> <span class="s1"> Someone asks him that, once, and someone answers </span> <em> <span class="s2">then die like one.</span> </em></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Right. Whatever's gone on in that fucked up head of his, Technoblade's hit the ground running, stolen the starting gun and begun shooting people with it. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Techno offers him armor just before it all goes to shit - just before they win, Techno offers him armor. It is hand-mined and hand-forged and all business. The look in Techno's eyes is somewhere between bemusement and concern. The Netherite's beenhammered into form with a precision that scares him - it lacks detailing, lacks beauty, and in some ironic way, feels like a waste of material. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Just before he wins and the world loses, Technoblade offers him a form-fitted coffin. Wilbur declines - he's got his own right here, doesn't he? </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He kicks the damned thing again. The wood feels soft beneath the toe of his boots, like it's rotted out and he could puncture it with a few more hits. He hits it a few more times. The wood bends and crackles but never breaks in.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Damn his stupid brother to hell. Let Phil sort him out, let Dream wring him dry, let Tommy skewer him on a spit and carry his head round, Lord of the Flies style. Let his stupid drink stop refilling with the stronger stuff. Let the sunset come into view, or the ocean lap at his feet.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Technoblade will do his brother proud, probably. Technoblade will preach his name and preach his anarchy and Wilbur Soot will understand and hate him for it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Its awful quiet in here, isn't it? There's a stillness to the atmosphere that invokes some mental image of death; a tableau of Pompeii, right when the ash started rolling in. The dark feels awfully swaddling.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Schlatt would hate this. He wonders if this is where the big guy ended up, after all of this - wonders if he's sat with his own alcohol at a parallel coffin or if he's drowning out in his own ocean by now. Probably the latter. Never been one for patience, Schlatt. Always one to take life by the horns and drag it behind him, kicking and screaming.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There's a memory in there somewhere. There's a server that he can hardly remember full of faces he vowed never to forget, and each of them are smeared across heads like a poorly erased whiteboard. Schlatt is there, and he's running for president again, and Wilbur cannot find it in himself to care all that much.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This is the issue. This is the root of the problem. Schlatt picks Carson instead and they win and they're terrible, just like always, but it's not a real presidency and so it never fucking matters. They laugh it off and kill each other just to get on nerves. They laugh it off. They laugh it all off. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Years later, the presidency is so real that Wilbur thinks he's going to die with his nation as Schlatt sinks his teeth into it. He has to care this time, and so he does; Schlatt doesn't laugh this time, but the grin on his face is predatory and real. His vice looks more like Wilbur than Carson ever did. He's distantly glad that Schlatt's found a more suitable replacement.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">SMPlive was a good one, all things considered. If ever a place was the pinnacle of stable instability, it was SMPlive, and Wilbur thinks he would trade anything in the world to be back there and remember those faces.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">With a deep-rooted sigh, he drops his head against the bar and runs his finger round the lip of his glass. Its still full, and despite the urge to tip it, Wilbur leaves sit standing. He squeezes his hands into fists and realizes that he referenced Chekhov's gun so much that he became it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Well. Sort of, at least. The button is still buried in his hand, and maybe that's close enough. In a fucked up way, the binding of it to him is fitting, almost comforting.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He thinks he'd like to see that tunnel now.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Its a bit weird, innit? Are these his seven minutes, stretched thin and out into infinity, sat at this sorry excuse for foreshadowing and forced to repent? More importantly - is he supposed to feel bad about these things?</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He's pretty sure that he should. He's just not sure that he does, is all. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Phil would know what to do. Hark, O Mighty Phil, gaze upon the fields you have sown! Look at him like he's a baby and treat him the way you never did when he was young! Pity your son, O Mighty Phil, and only call him that for the first time when you are steadying your sword to kill.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">God. God, God - he burns with injustice, alcohol feeding the fire, and wishes that he could blow something up again. The look on Phil's face made it worth it. The look on Phil's face made it all worth it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He'd never be proud, of course, but Wilbur thinks that he's well past pride. He stepped off that cliff ages ago. Phil didn't think to catch him until he'd already hit the ground.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Not his fault, this one. He swirls his drink and wishes for once that the opposite were true. Not his fault. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And then the ocean is there, frothing and crashing against his knees, and the sunset is so real that he could reach out and touch it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He does. He scoops the sun off the horizon and holds it in his hands and realizes that he is not cold. Whatever's thrumming through him has left him happy and warm and positively blooming. The world is maddeningly beautiful, just for a moment, the cacophony of light and color that a star makes before succumbing to the blackhole. He could eat the sun whole and hold it in his chest and pretend that the world were still exploding. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No, that's not right - pretend that the world weren't exploding at all.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Fundy is there. Niki, too, and these people are the ones he's neglected and the ones who've always, always cared.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He owes it to them. He owes something to them, and he's nothing to give and it makes him feel sick, sick, sick.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">At his core, Fundy is an example of the sick cycle of bad parenting. Maybe Phil would take him on. Maybe they'd each do a bit better - understand each other a bit more.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And Niki - God, he'll only ever regret the things he didn't do. Didn't talk to her. Didn't say goodbye. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Barely even said hello.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">L'manburg was funny in that way. People were thrown into the thick of things - people like Niki, or Fundy, or Phil. People like Quackity, who remind him so much of himself that it hurts - people like Schlatt, playing villain with the first breath he took on the server.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">All of these people. He owes them all something. Some word, some wisdom, some finality -</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">An ending, he realizes. He owes them an ending.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The world melts back into black. There is no coffin playing bar, there is no unending cocktail, there is no ocean and no sunset and no beach.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There is a tunnel. There is light.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Wilbur Soot starts walking.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">~</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><span class="s2"> <em>(Did it hurt?</em> </span> <span class="s1"> Someone will ask him. </span></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><em> <span class="s2">Of course it did,</span> </em> <span class="s1"> he'll say. </span> <em> <span class="s2">But I don't think I was very scared, in the end.)</span> </em></p>
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